WANTED: For Being A Hero

Chapter 9: A Breakthrough

Rami slowly opened his eyes. He was laying on his back, staring at the ceiling. He could tell this looked different. It wasn't some dingy, old apartment anymore. He lifted his head and saw that he was laying on a sofa. He recognized his surroundings. This was his sofa.

He was home. Was this a dream? It was hard to tell. He sat up, but quickly regretted it as he felt a wave of pain in his right side. He took in a sharp breath followed by a grunt as the pain took his breath away momentarily. He heard footsteps come into the room.

"Hey bud." came a familiar, and calming voice.

Looking over, he saw Reid in the doorway to the living room. His expression showed pity, but happiness. He walked towards the sofa where Rami lies.

"Try not to move much, ok? You have some bruised ribs. Nothing is broken though, so thank the heavens for that."

"Wh-wha ... how do you know?" he looked puzzled.

"I took you to the hospital after bringing you back. They checked you out and said you had three bruised ribs. They said you may have hit your head at some point, but nothing too serious. And your nose, surprisingly isn't broken either. Though you do have a pretty nasty black eye." he said as he sat down with an ice pack.

He placed the pack on Rami's side. "Here, hold it right there. It'll help ease some of the pain."

Rami does as told. He sits up the best he can, wincing at the pain.

"So ... they did everything while I was out?"

Reid shook his head. "You actually woke up in the hospital. You didn't say much, just nodded your head at the nurses. I assumed you weren't all there. Both from the shock of everything and the slight head injury. But you ended up falling asleep right as you got into my truck. I carried you inside once we got home."

Rami blushed slightly. "Well that's a tad embarrassing."

Reid chuckled. "Nah, it's fine. Nobody saw it."

"Wait." Rami's eyes were wide open. "What happened? How did I get home anyway? Did the police find me?"

The deer shook his head. "No, I did." he saw the look of confusion on the goat's face. "I'll explain later. But yes, I got some help, and was able to find out where those assholes took you. I may have ... um ... y'know, come out of retirement?" he winced a bit, unsure what Rami's reaction would be.

To his surprise, Rami just looked at him and nodded. "Thank you." he said as he attempted to lean forward with an arm out.

Reid met him with a hug, careful not to hurt him. "I was so worried about you." he whispered.

Rami tried not to cry. "I ... yeah." he said with a sigh. "But now I know I have you that will look out for me. And I know I can count on you to be there. You saved my life."

Reid chuckled. "I mean, I'm sure you could have handle-"

"Reid." Rami said seriously. "I mean that literally. He told me I had two options. Kill myself, or die of starvation. They left me in that room to die. You actually saved my life. I'm lucky to have you watching over me. Retirement or not."

The two sat together talking about the whole experience. Some tears were shed, but in the end, both were thankful to be alive. Both were grateful to have each other, and both were just happy to see each other again.

* * *

A couple days later, Reid took Rami up to the lab. As they pulled up, they noticed the gate was fixed, and Rami punched in the code to open it. The car was still there in the parking lot safe and sound. They parked the truck and got out.

They came up to the door and Rami got them inside. Immediately, they were startled by the excited squeal of Demir. He ran over to hug them.

"Ohhhhh Rami, I'm so glad you're ok. We were so worried about you. It's been very lonely without you here."

They talked for a moment, and Demir took Rami into the main lab while Reid made his way to the lounge. He didn't bother to get all dressed up since he wasn't there to work anyway, but he wanted to see what sort of progress was made on the project that changed his life forever.

"We got in a shipment the day you came back of the cancer samples we are using for tests." Demir showed Rami the incubation chambers they had going. "We have about 13 specimen in here right now. All we do at this point is look and take note of any changes that take place to the samples."

They went through all 13 dishes looking for anything of note. Nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary, but Rami did have something interesting catch his eye.

"Wait. Hold on." he said as he took a closer look.

Demir walked over. "Hm? What's wrong? Did I make a mistake?"

Rami shook his head. "No, no mistake. But this is interesting. Did all the samples look the same when you put them in here?"

"Uhhh, yes, I think so."

He pointed to one that was labeled 9. "This one here. You see how it looks a bit .. foggy? And .... hm, that's odd. I think the color is different too."

He looked over and grabbed a pair of gloves and some goggles from the station to his right. He put them on, and opened the chamber. He reached inside, and pulled out the number 9 petri dish.

"Can you get me one of the test strips they gave us?" he asked.

Demir walked over to a drawer, and took out a strip and gave it to Rami. He opened the dish and swabbed it with the strip. He waited about a minute and the striped changed color from orange to yellow.

"It's yellow. What does it say in the instructions? It should tell you what to look for."

Demir looked at the clipboard. "Yellow .... let's see ... it says here yellow means a negative test result." his eyes got wide as he looked at Rami. "Wait."

Rami gave the dish to Demir and asked him to test it himself. He takes a strip, and this time, uses a cotton swab and swabs the dish before swabbing the test strip. A minute passes.

Demir looked pale. "I-It's yellow."

Rami grinned. "Demir ... you know what that means, right?" he started glowing. "What was the specimen in that dish?"

Demir checked his notes. "It was .... Huckle Daisy."

Rami's jaw dropped. "You mean those super common flowers that's in everyone's yard? THAT'S the breakthrough?" he started laughing.

Demir was too in shock to react. "Rami ... I think we did it." he said.

Rami shook his head. "No ... YOU did it. I wasn't even here. I'm so proud of you!" he hugged his friend, ignoring the pain in his side.

The two went to tell Reid and Shaggy the good news. Everyone was overjoyed at this world-changing achievement. They celebrated, and Shaggy made the necessary calls and emails that needed to be made.

This tiny little lab, with only three employees. There's only on word that can best describe the feeling that everyone in that lab felt when the news came out about their discovery.

And that word, is satisfaction.

Satisfaction ... with being a hero.